Archaeologists claim discovery of the Library of Alexandria

Polish-Egyptian archaeologists are claiming to have found the original site of …

A Polish & Egyptian team of archaeologists are claiming to have found the original site of the Library of Alexandria, replete with large lecture halls capable of holding some 5,000 students. The Library is believed to be the greatest library of the ancient world, rivaled only by the Library at Pergamon, which was built many years later by Attalid kings hoping to recreate the glory of Greece. As fate would have it, Marc Antony would make a gift of several thousand scrolls from the Pergamene library to the library at Alexandria (for his dear Cleopatra, no less), only for history to see most (if not all) of those holdings destroyed in a tragic fire. No one knows for sure, but the library housed in the area of 500,000 scrolls (some would say 700,000, some would say less). It was a travesty for civilization in the West, and as a result we often have to rely on poor medieval witnesses to ancient literature, although we are also blessed with many Arabic copies of the works of Aristotle, Plato, and the like. Much, much more was lost, however, and we must always remember that the voices that speak to us from the age of Pericles are only a tiny few of those that were once read aloud in the Library's halls. The Library did not house "works by Socrates," despite what the BBC said. Socrates did not produce literary works, and even the ancients knew of Plato's hand in the dialogues.

The library was designed as a mausoleum for Alexander the Great, but his body never made it there. Built by Ptolemy II Soter, the library was part of an overall house built for the honor of the Muses. That is, it was a museum. Many libraries in the west are also designed in a similar fashion, with a central "tomb" area in the middle. Rarely is a body to be found there, however. Widener Library at Harvard University is designed as such, and the central tomb area lies vacant, as the library was built with funds donated by a relative of a man who died on the Titanic.

Ken Fisher / Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation.